We have arrived at a critical point in US history. The US population is irreparably divided politically. There are uprisings across the country, led by black Americans. All three arms of government are in crisis: the Executive, headed by President Donald Trump, is destroying anything remotely progressive in US society; the Legislature – Congress – is almost completely paralysed, split between the two parties; in the Judiciary, the Court’s conservative majority has been entrenched by the death of liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A polarised people, riots in the streets, a crisis-torn government – all in the middle of a deadly pandemic, with the presidential election just weeks away: these are the ingredients needed for a ‘perfect storm’ – that combination of circumstances that suddenly and drastically aggravate a situation.
Trump has poured gasoline onto the conflagration, unleashing shadowy paramilitary forces to attack demonstrators and encouraging his supporters to kill and injure protesters. The pandemic has laid bare for all to see his utter incompetence, his complete inability to handle a serious crisis and the consequences of ignoring scientific advice. Trump’s priority in office has not been the protection of the US people, nor the promotion of US imperialism, nor even his own reactionary agenda, but the promotion and personal enrichment of Donald Trump. How did we arrive here? And what happens next?
How we got here
The last time the country was in a similar political situation was in 1865, immediately after the Civil War, when President Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat and a racist, attempted to roll back measures which punished the Southern rebels and protected freed slaves. Battle began between the Radical Republicans, supporting black freedom, and Johnson and his supporters. It concluded only when the Republican Ulysses Grant was elected president in 1868. The Reconstruction Act and the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing universal male suffrage ushered in an era of Radical Reconstruction, bringing unprecedented freedoms for black people.
White revanchists began a campaign of terror against black people and their white allies in the South, founding the white terrorist Ku Klux Klan. Federal troops suppressed the terrorists. However, Reconstruction was no longer central in Northern politics so Federal support waned. The ‘Compromise of 1877’ led to the withdrawal of Federal troops and the end of Reconstruction, ushering in a new era of oppression for black Americans.
The Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s finally ended legal segregation and discrimination but it was spontaneously replaced with social segregation: white people fled cities for the suburbs, leaving the black population behind and resulting in geographical apartheid. The results endure down to this day as de facto segregation in housing, education, provision of health services and elsewhere. This segregation is White Supremacy: the relegation of black people to second class status or worse.
Following the Second World War, news of racist murders and beatings of black soldiers and others were flashed around the world. At a time when US imperialism was attacking the Soviet Union for its ‘lack of democracy’ and trying to counter its influence in ex-colonial countries, Southern racists were brutally demonstrating the true nature of ‘American Democracy’, undermining the US imperialist project.1 The Federal government’s willingness to confront Southern racists sprang from the needs of imperialism. In return, the ruling class attempted either to co-opt or to destroy any anti-racist movement that was a serious threat to White Supremacy. Blatant racism went underground, simply disappearing from view, and continued to fester.
In 2008 the Census Bureau announced that white people were projected to become a minority in the US by 2044. This finding has dominated much of the discourse on race amongst the white population ever since (although the Bureau did not repeat this prediction in 2018). As the New York Times put it, ‘For white nationalists, it signifies a kind of doomsday clock counting down to the end of racial and cultural dominance’. Such an outcome would mean a loss of power, particularly the power to maintain segregation. The collapse of White Supremacy can only be prevented either by ending democracy in the US so that white people can maintain power, or by genocidal destruction of ethnic minorities in the US. White Supremacy needs to go much further than building walls and tinkering with immigration to survive. The ceaseless growth and intensity of right-wing rage over the last three decades is the political expression of this demographic pressure, although it has in place constitutional safeguards to maintain its privilege. The US Senate enshrines white conservative minority rule: tiny states like Wyoming (600,000 inhabitants) have the same number of Senators as California (40 million). Soon 70% of Americans will be represented by 30 Senators, while a 30% minority will have 70.2 Politically, the diverse, urban majority are subject to the veto of the rural, white, conservative minority.
Dissent amongst Republicans
When Trump was first elected, most of the ruling class accepted him, looking beyond his racism and misogyny to his reactionary political programme. They got their programme, but are shocked at the bill they now have to pay for it. Trump’s obvious failings are clear – his ignorance, his erratic decision-making, his inability to read a brief, his brittle ego, his susceptibility to flattery, his lying – the list is endless. These failings have created mounting unease among the more far-sighted Republicans. The massive countrywide uprisings against racism not only of the black population but of white youth too, are the last straw. Trump is blatantly incapable of defending US imperialism and is deepening divisions within the US.
Trump or imperialism
Trump has threatened to leave NATO and opposed the Foreign Aid programmes used to buy the loyalty of neo-colonialist puppets, while flirting and cavorting politically with states which are rivals or threats. More than 70 Republican former Federal Defense and National Security officials have signed a statement making clear the basis for Republican opposition to Trump, who:
‘has gravely damaged America’s role as a world leader … shown that he is unfit to lead during a national crisis … solicited foreign influence and undermined confidence in our presidential elections … aligned himself with dictators … disparaged our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and diplomats … undermined the rule of law … divided our nation … imperiled America’s security by mismanaging his national security team … dangerously unfit to serve another term’.
In the 2020 election there is an opportunity to replace Trump. The Democrats have shown they are solid supporters of US imperialism. Their candidates are solidly pro-imperialist: Joe Biden, former two-term Vice-President and six-term Senator, and Kamala Harris, a one-term Senator, who previously served as California’s Attorney General. Both have solid records of upholding injustice at home and abroad – Biden authored the draconian 1994 Crime Bill and Harris brags about being California’s ‘Top Cop’ when she was the State’s Attorney General; both are pro-active Zionists, visiting Israel and speaking at AIPAC conferences.
Now Republicans have to choose between craven loyalty to their president or the preservation of imperialism. Despite Trump’s attempts to portray Biden and Harris as dangerous left-wing subversives, many dissident Republicans are supporting Biden in November. Leading Republicans spoke at the Democratic convention to endorse the Democrats’ ticket. Biden and Harris have been put forward to try to salvage US imperialism from the damage Trump has inflicted on it. But they have to win the election and assume power. Here there are real problems because of the obstacles created by Trump supporters (see ‘Rigging the vote’ FRFI 278).
The American people are about to get a lesson in the realities of capitalism. Behind the thin veneer of ‘the rule of law’ and ‘respect’ for precedent lies naked capitalism, which ultimately depends upon just two things: guns and money. The guns are there to ensure that the ‘money’ – the continuous, relentless expansion of value – keeps flowing. Trump has claimed that the guns are on his side: ‘I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people’.
Since Trump consistently behaves as if he is above the law, there is no reason to assume that he will suddenly start respecting it. For months the ruling class has been debating the consequences of this likely possibility. One mainstream report says that ‘Planners need to take seriously the notion that this may well be a street fight, not a legal battle; technocratic solutions, courts, and a reliance on elites observing norms are not the answer here’, and goes on to float the idea of co-opting and buying off the Black Lives Matter movement (‘supporting and resourcing new and emerging racial justice leaders’).3
Not ‘rioting’ but a political uprising
The current wave of uprisings is an important development and, potentially, a major political step forward for black Americans. The black response to key racist events since the crushing of the Black Panthers in the 1970s has typically been raw rage, expressed in riots. Following the vicious beating of Rodney King in 1992 by Los Angeles police, his attackers initially went unpunished, shocking even Republican President George Bush. A massive outburst of raw, righteous rage against injustice spontaneously erupted in Los Angeles and across the country. In six days, in Los Angeles alone, some 63 died, 2,383 were injured, there were more than 7,000 fires, damage to 3,100 businesses, and nearly $1bn in financial losses. (See FRFI 107, ‘The rage undammed’). At the time, there was the brief possibility, as we wrote at the time, that ‘this time, hopefully, people will learn that their fate lies in the collective action they take to fight a system which is unreformable. In the divided condition of US society, there are millions waiting for this call.’ Today, that call is being made by the sustained, controlled and focused political rage of Black Lives Matter against systemic racism. This is the march of people who have had more than enough and are not going to tolerate it any more.
Gun control is racist
Violence simmers under the surface of US society, erupting periodically in mass shootings, home invasions, gang warfare and apparently senseless random killings. ‘Gun control’ sounds such an obvious solution: no guns equal no shootings, problem solved. The reality is that there are about 400 million guns in the United States –1.2 for every adult and child in the country. History shows that gun control has little or nothing to do with protecting the American people and everything to do with preserving White Supremacy. Its real aim is to disarm people of colour, primarily black Americans. United States gun legislation has been discriminatory in numerous ways4 to keep guns out of the hands of the poor. The introduction of gun control would be a genocidal step, directed against black people and must be rejected. What is needed now is serious preparation for the likely event that Trump will not follow the law and step down.
A second Civil War?
There is no basis for compromise between the two sides of this bitter divide. This is a struggle by White Supremacy for survival, by any means necessary. The only argument that White Supremacy understands comes out of a gun. The majority of the ruling class are hoping that, somehow, Trump will ‘see sense’ and that his supporters will give up their fight. This is a ridiculous fairy story. The Democrats will try to defuse the struggle by denouncing ‘extremism’ and ‘impatience’, dragging protesters off the streets and into the courts. Things have gone too far already. Trump supporters have opened fire and the first bodies have fallen. The ‘resistance’ must immediately prepare for self-defence. Only people trained, organised and armed can halt Trumpism. The result of this struggle will have major repercussions for the rest of the world because a Trumpian United States will try to ‘Make America Great Again’ at the expense not only of the oppressed and working people of America, but of the entire world.
Steve Parker
See Mary Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights, Princeton University Press, 2000.
See Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian 25 September 2020.
Transition Integrity Project Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition, pp 11, 12.
See ‘US gun control: no solution’ by Stephen Palmer, FRFI 231
